


Prompt: Found Family

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [56]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Codependency, Familial Dynamics, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6401512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Vision-” The Captain starts as soon as they arrive.</p><p>“I am already hacking their protocols, sir,” he says, and Wanda can see it in the shifting of his mind, the green-and-burgundy neurons tucking away behind the vast databanks of computing, letting him into the base’s files.</p><p>“You don’t need to,” Wanda says. “If there is someone who has been experimented on Pietro and I will find them.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Found Family

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on my tumblr, readable [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/141930389835/hello-i-have-a-prompt-fic-for-maximoff-twins-i). In short form: another HYDRA base has another individual who has been experimented on, the twins take care of them after they and the other Avengers' get them out.

**i.**  
“Why are we looking at this place again?” Sam asks, looking at the images projected behind Steve. “We’ve scanned this base three times already, they’ve got no defences that can take us, and they don’t have more than forty, _maybe_  fifty people in there.”

“You don’t need all our firepower for it,” Rhodey adds.

“I agree with Wilson and Rhodes, Captain,” Vision says. “This _does_ seem like overkill.”

“We scanned it with Bruce’s gamma algorithms the other day,” Natasha says.

The twins share a glance, as do the two pilots. “What?” they say in collective unison.

“What I believe Agent Romanoff means,” Vision says slowly, “is that the place contains Tesseract or Sceptre-like energy.”

Natasha nods. Beside her the Captain watches the twins closely. “We think,” he says, and his eyes are fixed on them, speaking directly to them, “that whatever they did to you they managed to find a way to do it to someone else.”

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
“What did they do to you?” Sam asks as the Quinjet flies out. He waves a hand slightly even as he’s pulling on his gloves. “If you’re ok talking about it that is.”

“Many things,” Wanda says. “They had us get to the peak of health before they would run the experiments and…” she trails off.

“There were many experiments,” Pietro says. “They started with quizzes to test intelligence and reflexes, and then more practical things and then-”

“Viruses,” Wanda says. “With Chitauri blood and charged by the sceptre. Channelling energy from the Sceptre into our veins or our nerves. They had crystals, blue ones, with some kind of metal. They charged them with the Sceptre, then crumbled them into Chitauri blood and treated it with the radiation of the Sceptre.” She closes her eyes but they can see the red light moving under her lids. “It was that which  _did_  anything.” Her eyes open, red light plays in her hand. “It is how we became as we are.”

Sam nods. “So if they kept samples of the that stuff they could try giving it to more people.”

“If Strucker lived,” Wanda says, “I would scan his mind to tell you how much they might have had.” She shrugs, the new scarlet coat of her uniform shifting over her shoulders. “But he does not so I cannot.”

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
They’re almost at the base when Vision says, “I have found records of items Strucker had shipped to other bases.” There is a pause as everyone stares at him, and the lenses in his eyes set and reset to look at them all in turn. “It was in some of Ultron’s files. It took me time to undo his encryption and destroy his viruses.”

Wanda’s hand is wrapped tightly around Pietro’s, his free hand light on her arm.

“Does it have the vials?” Wanda asks.

Vision’s gaze is, as ever, gentle as it falls on Wanda. “There were twelve,” he says softly. “And they were sent here.”

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
“Vision-” The Captain starts as soon as they arrive.

“I am already hacking their protocols, sir,” he says, and Wanda can see it in the shifting of his mind, the green-and-burgundy neurons tucking away behind the vast databanks of computing, letting him into the base’s files.

“You don’t need to,” Wanda says. “If there is someone who has been experimented on Pietro and I will find them.”

They do not wait to hear the Captain’s words before she is in Pietro’s arms and hurtling around the base.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
The others are in the base by the time Wanda is certain she has pinpointed the mind. Pietro halts, sets her down to get her bearings, and sprints off to take down a perimeter guard the others missed. Wanda presses her fingers to the earpiece in her ear.

“There is one mind,” she says, “Deep within. It has memories of the virus.”

There is a sigh of relief down the commlink. “Good to know,” Steve says. “Can you get them out?”

Wanda nods, tugs on her bond to Pietro. “We can do it.”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
There is a girl in the cell. She is... Wanda thinks she might be little more than ten years old. She wears robes like what she and Pietro had worn when their powers had first emerged and now she is closer she can see how her mind is disoriented, unable to fix its bearings.

“Pietro,” she murmurs, and glances down the corridor, where the guards they’d sprinted past are stirring. Pietro rocks back on his heel and vanishes down the corridor in a split of silver. The guards stay down.

Wanda’s scarlet undoes the lock and the girl in the corner flinches at the sound. Her hair is, Wanda notices, tinted with green, just as Pietro’s began to bleach oddly after the experiments. She brushes scarlet over the girl’s mind, tries to see if they share any languages. _English_  crops up, but it is poor, and then _French_  which is fluent and Wanda knows very little of and then _German_ , which Wanda has if not as quite well as the girl seems to.

Wanda casts her mind back, tries to remember how to separate German out from the hybrid dialect of Austrian German and Serbian that makes up much of the Sokovian language. “ _Kind?_ ” she asks, voice soft. “ _Mein Name ist Wanda, Ich bin..._ ” She casts her mind back, tries to claw the words out of the recesses of her mind. “ _Ich bin hier um zu helfen._ ” _I am here to help_.

The girl looks up and Wanda sees green eyes in a grimy face before the girl glances back down.

“ _We are with the Avengers_ ,” she says, still in German, and kneels beside the girl. “ _My brother and I, we will get you out_.”

The girl flinches again and Wanda chews the inside of her cheek. “ _Ich kann..._ ” she tries, but she cannot recall the word for telepath. She does not think she ever learned it. Wanda sighs. “ _Was ist deine Name_?” she tries instead, and then almost drags a hand down her face when she realises. 

 _That was informal_ , Pietro’s mind tells her, tone almost teasing. She can feel him sprinting back to them. _The formal is different. I think it was wrong in general too, but my German is worse than yours._

 _“Lorna,”_  the girl says all the same. “ _Mein Name ist Lorna.”_

 _“Lorna_ ,” Wanda says, and tries to keep things as simple as possible. “ _Ich bin Wanda, meine Bruder ist Pietro._ _Wir sind hier um zu helfen._ ” 

The girl _looks_  at Wanda, something piercingly focussed in her gaze. 

“ _May I help you_?” Wanda asks, still in German. She thinks she’s mixed up the formal and informal again, but Lorna seems to understand and nods. Scarlet spirals out of Wanda’s fingers, laces through Lorna’s soft grey-green mind, and gives it a solid bearing. “ _There_ ,” Wanda says. “ _Does that help_?”

Lorna looks at her warily, but nods. Wanda smiles gently, but Lorna still flinches when Pietro comes to a halt in the doorway.

“Stay back,” Wanda says in Sokovian. “You will scare her.”

Pietro steps inside the cell instead, leaves the door open and stands in the corner. “She is tiny,” he says, and sounds almost disbelieving.

“HYDRA are monsters,” Wanda replies, and tries to soothe Lorna when she flinches at the word _HYDRA_. “We know this.” Pietro nods and falls silent. “Captain?” Wanda switches into English to speak on the commlink. “We have found her. Unless there is another who survived and who is invisible to me, we have found her.”

“There is only one,” Vision says. “Seven subjects, only one survivor. I have found where they keep the remaining vials.”

There is quiet for a moment, and Wanda can hear the _thunk_  of the Captain’s shield hitting something very hard. “Vision,” the Captain says. “Get the vials, get them in storage on the Quinjet or get them to Rhodey to store in his suit until we’re done here. Maximoffs?” He pauses a moment, waits for the twins _Da_  of confirmation. “Get her to the Quinjet. Have Pietro carry her or-”

“She is scared of Pietro,” Wanda says. “I think she is scared of most men. I will carry her.”

“Right,” the Captain says. “But make sure she’s clear, and tell me when you’re all on the Quinjet.”

“ _Da_.”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Wanda carries Lorna how she had carried small children at the orphanage when they were between fosters. Balanced carefully on her hip, Lorna curled into her, one hand half-free. She keeps scarlet tugged close in that hand, ready to strike out.

When they're almost halfway out of the base Pietro sprints off, and she thinks Lorna notices that she is tenser with her brother gone, tucking closer. “ _It will be all right_ ,” she murmurs. “ _Tell me_ ,” she asks, to keep her mind off wherever Pietro has run to. “ _What can you do_?”

Lorna’s hand, small and bony and pale, stretches out, _twists_  and suddenly a coil of copper and steel is shaping itself into a bracelet around her wrist. “ _Metal_ ,” she murmurs. “ _I can control it_.” Then suddenly Lorna is small again, tucked close to Wanda, even her newly bracelet-ed hand tucked close. 

“I brought a blanket,” Pietro says, the blue-silver tracery still in the air beside him. The blanket is orange, bright and ugly, but distinctly warm-looking. He nods towards Lorna. “Outside, it is cold. With the robes...”

Wanda nods. “Lorna?” she asks. The girls eyes fix on her face, eyes bright and green. “ _May my brother wrap you in the blanket? It is cold outside_.” Lorna glances to Pietro, and the image bubbles up in Pietro’s mind, Lorna’s bright and piercing gaze, much like Wanda’s when focussed. Slowly, Lorna nods.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
They reach the Quinjet with no complications, Pietro sprinting away every few metres to knock down a stirring guard. Lorna, wrapped in the blanket, barring her feet and face, clings to Wanda like a monkey. Once there Wanda sits, rocking Lorna gently on her lap and Pietro darts around, sending a message via the Quinjet’s comms, finding the thermos he knows the Captain packed, the medkit he knows is tucked under the gurney, the spare sets of clothes that Vision conscientiously tucked to one side after they all lost parts of their uniforms in an explosion on a training mission.

“Here,” he says, sitting down beside Wanda, offering the thermos of hot soup to Lorna. “ _Suppe_.” 

Lorna glances at the thermos, glances to Pietro’s face and back to the soup. Wanda can smell it, some mixture of vegetables, chicken and a strong measure of garlic, delicious and warm. Pietro smiles gently, and it looks almost awkward on him, him trying to be comforting to someone not one of them. Carefully he pours out some of the soup into the metal cap and offers it again.

Lorna glances again, soup, Pietro, soup, Pietro, then stretches out her hand, _twists_  and the cup floats - somewhat wobbily - free of Pietro’s hands and into hers. Pietro glances to Wanda.

“Metal,” Wanda says in soft Sokovian. “She can control it.”

 

* * *

 

 **ix.  
** Lorna is dozing when the others get back, still tucked against Wanda. Pietro had caught the thermos cap when it almost fell from her grip and Lorna had smiled sleepily, twisted her hands and the bracelet on her wrist separated into steel and copper. The copper, half carried by the steel, wrapped around Wanda’s wrist, before the steel wrapped around Pietro’s. “ _Ein Geschenk_ ,” she had said, and Wanda translated. _A gift_.

“ _Dankeschon_ ,” Pietro had said. Wanda had nodded and gently tucked Lorna closer. 

“ _Dankeschon_.”

The others are quiet on their return, once they spot Lorna dozing in Wanda’s arms. Pietro is hovering protectively, the way he does any time Wanda is hurt, and the others know by now that dealing with Pietro like that is never fun.

“She’s all right?” the Captain asks as he arrives back, and the twins nod.

“She is sleeping,” Wanda says. “Pietro gave her some of your soup.”

He frowns slightly at Pietro for that, but Pietro shrugs, unabashed. “She would have been hungry. The food was terrible when it was us.”

“The medkits?” he asks, and glances to the pile beside Pietro’s seat. “And the spare clothes?”

“We were going to check her over,” Wanda says. “Give her something new to wear, but she fell asleep.”

“We’ll alert Doctor Cho,” he says, and glances at Lorna’s face, half tucked against Wanda. “Make sure she’s all right.”

They aren’t entirely sure who or what he’s referring to with that, and settle for nodding.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
Lorna is, Doctor Cho says, slightly underweight, and in need of a square meal and a good night’s rest.

“And no drugs!” she adds. “Whatever they put into her system, it's not good for her. Nothing stronger than aspirin for a week.”

Pietro finds the saucepan of soup the Captain had put in the group fridge and reheats a bowl, makes some toast. Lorna is still dozing, but she wakes up enough to eat it all before falling back to sleep. 

The others glance between themselves and Wanda can see them wondering where Lorna should go. 

“She stays with us,” Wanda says. “She has been through the same as us, she is like family. We will take care of her.”

They tuck Lorna into Wanda’s bed, and take it in turns to keep an eye on her as she sleeps.

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
When Lorna wakes screaming it is Wanda watching. Pietro is awake in a moment, but Wanda is already there, holding Lorna’s hands, repeating over and over again, “ _Ich habe Sie, Ich habe Sie_!”

Pietro sits beside Wanda, a little further from Lorna who still glances at him warily. Then Lorna takes his hand, the one bearing the bracelet she gave him.

Wanda’s words change. “ _We have you_ ,” she says in German, and Pietro finishes what she means to say.

“ _You are safe_.”

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Sometimes Lorna’s nightmares are only screaming ones, and sometimes she does as Pietro has seen Wanda do, lashing out with her gift in great powerful waves. 

The difference here, of course, is that he can’t _see_  what she is doing.

“ _We have you_ ,” he murmurs, as soon as he’s shaken her awake. When she takes to clinging to him like a monkey after nightmares, as she does with Wanda, it becomes, “ _I have you_ ,” with his hands stroking soothingly down her back just as he has done for long years with Wanda. “ _Ich habe Sie_ ,” he promises. “ _Ich habe Sie. Sie sind sicher.” I have you. You are safe._

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
After the first few nights they don’t sleep in shifts, but Pietro is, as ever, hyper-aware to things that might hurt Wanda, and feels the way the air is moving with the metal. 

One evening her nightmare wakes both of them, both of them holding her hands, letting her cling close as a monkey to them both. “ _Wir haben Sie_ ,” they repeat, over and over, a soothing litany, a quiet reassurance. “ _Wir haben Sie, wir haben Sie_.”

“ _Du_ ,” Lorna says one night, and the twins still, glance to each other.

 _Informal_ , thinks Wanda.

 _Trust_ , thinks Pietro.

“ _Du_ ,” Wanda murmurs, nodding, and the twins speak together. “ _Wir haben du_.”

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
Lorna trusts them, and it is a trust they are careful to never betray. They are careful not to lie to her, to let her know the extent of their powers, which of the others they _know_  can be trusted (thus far they count Barton and Vision in that number, without reservation, and the Captain and the Falcon more warily. Rhodes they know is friends with Stark, and Romanoff... Wanda still cannot get a read). When Wanda brings pieces of metal to Lorna for her to practice with they are left as offerings on the table, where Lorna can see them but does not have to use them.

Sometimes Wanda uses them for practice, lifting them up, combining them together as best she can, making them dance in patterns, and Lorna will watch closely.

“ _That’s what you can do_?” Lorna asks. “ _You can control metal and minds_?”

Wanda shakes her head. “ _Minds_ ,” she says, “ _And I can move objects, create force or use the red to shield. I do it all through the red_.”

Lorna nods and watches.

 

* * *

 

 **xv.**  
The first time Lorna does not wake them after a nightmare it is Pietro who wakes to notice it. He is always hyper-aware of what might hurt Wanda and he feels the air change as Lorna pads out of bed and sits at the table. He is sitting up, making sure Wanda is safe tucked under her own blankets when he spots the steel dancing over the wood of the table. 

Lorna, he realises, is making it dance, is setting it spinning, making it sing.

He pads quietly over the floor, sits down on the other side of the table.

“ _You are all right_?” he asks.

Lorna glances at him, hands still around the spinning, warping,  _singing_ metal, and nods.

“ _I wanted..._ ,” she starts, and then nods towards the metal. “ _I haven’t. I didn’t want to have to hurt anyone_.”

Pietro does not have to ask to understand. He remembers how Strucker had Wanda practice destruction with her wooden blocks, had her tear minds apart. Wanda has never feared battle, feared destruction, feared doing harm except to Pietro. Lorna, on the other hand, is a child about whom they know so little.

“ _They made Wanda hurt people_ ,” he says instead. “ _They taught me to use my speed to do the same. They wanted weapons, not people_.”

Lorna nods, mixes the metal into one shape, a bird perched in the open door of a cage, looking outwards. Her eyes are bright and green and focussed on his. “ _I don’t want to be a weapon_.”

 

* * *

 

 **xvi.**  
Lorna is, Wanda knows, comfortable around her. She is more likely to venture out into the base if she can stay at Wanda’s side, if Wanda will stay close to her in turn, and Wanda, when she has time, is more than willing to help her adjust. Pietro... Wanda knows Lorna is getting used to him. That she doesn’t fear him since he gave her soup, and that she is practicing her English with him.

It still surprises her to see Pietro chasing after something silvery thrown by Lorna’s power, to see Lorna laughing when it is returned, and, most of all, to see Lorna arrive on day to training carried in Pietro’s arms.

“She asked if she could watch,” he says in Sokovian. “I would have preferred piggyback, but she is a monkey.”

Wanda laughs at that. “Our monkey,” she says. “She is our sister now.”

Pietro grins. “I will tell the Captain,” he says, and gently ruffles Lorna’s green hair as he goes.

 

* * *

 

 **xvii.**  
“ _You are our sister_ ,” Pietro says when they walk back with Lorna that day, then frowns.

“ _You are a sister to us_ ,” Wanda says instead, explaining better. “ _We have all been changed by HYDRA, and we are all free of them. We are like family_.”

Lorna watches them, her eyes their bright-yet-pale watchful green. “We can be family?” she asks in English. “You can be...” she trails off.

“Siblings,” Pietro says, and gently reaches for Lorna’s hand, the metal of his bracelet catching the light. “We can be siblings.”

The smile Lorna gives is radiant.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> The German is about as accurate as I can make it from what I recall of learning German. Barring what Lorna says it's meant to be a little stilted and not 100% right, as in my headcanon its a second language for the twins (or possibly a third or fourth even).
> 
> Comments are much appreciated!

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